Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/340

 278 NOTES AND QUERIES. r 12 s.x. APIUL 8,1022. immediate cause of this valuable and good man's death was a fever which attacked him during his confinement added to the late trying anxiety of mind, and his infirmities arising from hardships in America during a service of forty years. His many amiable qualities made him universally beloved and esteemed by every person who had the happiness of his acquaintance. His family have lost in him a tender parent, a most affection- ate husband, and the world one of the noblest works of God, AN HONEST MAN [sic]. From these defiant capitals the gallant officer evidently had a " good press," and we may assume The Kentish Gazette was not a supporter of the then Government. As to the official rank of John Montresor, the ' D.N.B.,' which seems to have known nothing of the last decade of his life, makes him " Major " and gazettes him only up to " Captain and Engineer." The Maidstone Parish Register, I am told, records his burial on June 9, 1799, as Lt. -Colonel, but I have not verified this. Whether this rank w^as the result of long service in America, where even then " Colonel " was perhaps " common form," whether it was official after the date to which the a, tribute to local popularity, I must leave to some military expert. PERCY HTJLBURD. PALLONE, AN ITALIAN GAME (12 S. x. 65, 154). I doubt there being inaccuracies in the description of the game as played in Rome given by the late William Wetmore Story. He was a prose writer and poet as well as sculptor, and from 1848 till his death in 1895 lived mainly in Rome. He occupied for many years part of the Palazzo Barberini. I may perhaps quote from a letter written to me a few days ago by a friend of mine, who was Military Attache in Rome for many years : Pallone is still played in Borne : there is a big open court in the new quarter that has sprung up of late years outside the old walls between the Porta Pia and the Villa Borghese. The court is surrounded by a high wall surmounted with netting. During my last stay in Borne there was no play owing to the war, but many years ago, twenty or thereabouts, when I was first in Borne, I used sometimes to go and see the game played, and although I am not familiar with the rules and my recollection is rather vague, I think that Story's account is correct and accurate. I take it, it would be difficult to catch him napping with regard to any matter connected with the Bomans and their customs. I know nothing of the game as played outside Borne, but it is most probable that the rules, &c., vary locally in different parts of Italy. I always was under the impression that " pallone " was a Boman speciality. I knew Waldo Story, son of the author of ' Boba di Boma,' very well ; he also was a sculptor and died shortly (a year or two) before the war, I think. In another letter my friend writes : It is most highly probable the way of playing the game varies in different parts of Italy. The unification of Italy has had little effect on purely local customs. I submit that Story had a right to form his own opinion on Pallone r. Cricket, and that his preference for the former scarcely merits the epithet " silly." ROBERT PIERPOINT. IDENTIFICATION OF FLAG (12 S. x. 70). The flag may be that of the Guinea Com- pany, which was formed 1588, for though it does not exactly answer the description, in that it has no canton, yet it has the cross and the bordure chequy, and C. King, in his small book on flags, says that the Guinea Company's flag appears to have had more than one form. In addition, it must be remembered that painters were often not exact in their heraldry. Hulme, in his ' Flags of the World,' gives an illustration of the flag. The E.I. Co. had an ensign containing a red cross in the canton, the remainder of the flag being striped red and white ; the number of stripes varied. Since the date 1666 is suggested, the following note I have found amongst my papers may be relevant : Prince Bupert was in command of the Guinea Fleet in 1664, sailing in the Henrietta, a third- rater of 60 guns and 380 men. The fleet put to sea, but was recalled owing to the war prepara- tions of the Dutch. My opinion is that it is at any rate some " company " flag. A. G. KEALY, Chaplain, B.N. retd. THE TROUTBECK PEDIGREE (12 S. x. 21, 77, 97, 111). The greater part of the original article by DR. HALL is based on his statement that John Talbot of Grafton, by his will of 1549, appointed, as overseer, " Richard Trutbek, my father-in-law." DR. HALL asks, " In what sense does Talbot call Richard Trutbek his father-in-law ? " As DR. HALL says elsewhere, " plainly there is wild confusion somewhere," for the answer to his question is that Talbot does not do so at all. MR. JOHN BROWNBILL tells me he has looked at the will. The executors were the wife (not named), George Alyngton and Richard Trutbek ; and the overseer was " my father-in-law " (no name given). Thus there was no occasion for most of DR. HALL'S lengthy article ; nor is there any
 * D.N.B.' follows him, or whether it was